


No Easy Walk

by pixymisa



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Bloodplay, Collars, Knifeplay, M/M, Roleplay, hell issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-26
Updated: 2012-10-26
Packaged: 2017-11-17 02:31:05
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 10,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/546661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pixymisa/pseuds/pixymisa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam's been sneaking out at night, going to strange places with strange people. At first Dean fears the worst, but the truth is something that he never expected. Maybe Sam's messed up from Hell and Lucifer, and Dean's just messed up in general, but somehow they make it work.</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Easy Walk

Somewhere along the line, Dean’s had to come to the conclusion that he doesn’t know Sam very well. He used to, of course. Once upon a time they were so close that Dean could predict every move his kid brother made. But that was before all of the bullshit with the deal and the demon blood and the angels and everything else. Dean doesn’t know when it happened, but it did.

So when his brother sneaks out of their motel room in the middle of the night, Dean has no idea why.

 _Demon blood_ is the first thing that comes to mind, but Sam’s been clean for years, and Dean hasn’t noticed any of the other signs or any weird psychic powers. Lucifer comes next, but Cas seems to have plucked that thorn clean from Sam’s mind. And after that, things get a little muddled in Dean’s head. The middle of the night suggests urgency, the sneaking around secrecy, but none of it makes any sense.

So Dean does what any rational person would do. He tails his own brother. Sam isn’t nearly as sneaky as he thinks he is, although, Dean thinks, that may be because Sam’s out of practice. It’s been a few years since he had to do much sneaking around. A lot of that is Dean’s fault. Once you stop trusting your brother, it’s easy enough to go for another drink instead of getting angry.

But this is different. Dean doesn’t even know why it’s different. Maybe because of Cas zapping Hallucifer out of Sam’s brain meats, or because of the looming threat of the leviathans, or because with just about every ally they’ve ever had dead and gone, Dean can’t distract himself from Sam anymore.

Sam doesn’t take the crappy Ford they’ve been driving for the last few days. He moves out on foot, like whatever he’s after isn’t all that far away. They’re stopped in a shitty little town, one that long ago gave up the ghost when it came to looking respectable. Dean doesn’t even know what the name of it is; the sign was covered in enough lewd graffiti to be unreadable. It was a good place to stop. No one would ask any questions about two strangers blowing into town and leaving just as quick.

Dean didn’t think about it at the time, but this is exactly the sort of place a nest of demons would love to settle down. And he doesn’t like where that line of thought is leading. Sam’s clean, he reminds himself.

Or is he trying to convince himself?

Either way, Sam heads out on foot, and Dean follows him as closely as he dares. It’s interesting that they pass two bars and a strip club. Dean was kind of hoping that Sam needed a drink or to wrap himself up in a nice pair of legs. But they push on past all of that, into a ramshackle neighborhood that looks like it was well-kept at one point, but fell into ruin like everything else. Down one entire street, Dean can see multiple mailboxes on the fronts of houses with peeling clapboard.

Sam stops at one, hesitates for a moment, and then knocks at the door. It’s a few minutes of tense waiting, and for a moment Dean’s certain Sam is going to look his way. But then the door opens, and a man steps out, and Sam’s attention is entirely on him. Nothing about him screams demon, or leviathan, or anything else Dean can think up on short notice. He looks like a normal dude, but when has anything ever been normal for them?

Before Dean can start to wonder, the dude says something to Sam, and Sam drops down to his knees, just like that. The dude takes something out of his back pocket, and it’s only after he puts it around Sam’s neck that Dean realizes what it is. A collar.

Sam just stares up at this dude, this guy that Dean’s never seen before, like he’s the answer to something. And Dean, well, he can’t do anything but stare after them. The dude hooks a narrow silver chain to the collar and tugs on it. Turning away, he leads Sam inside the house, Sam crawling on all fours, like some sort of animal.

Dean wants to throw up, but he stifles it. He creeps up to the door and tries the knob, but it’s locked. And Dean doesn’t want to just kick the door down, in case someone calls the cops or worse, summons some sort of archdemon. He’s at a loss as to what to do for a minute, and then hears a creaking sound from inside the house, something like old stairs or floorboards. Whoever build the old house should be ashamed of themselves for the shitty insulation, but Dean thanks them silently anyway. He follows the creaking around to the front of the house, where it changes in pitch and seems to be higher than it was before. Definitely stairs this time.

There’s a balcony above Dean’s head. Run down and not maintained, like everything else about this house, but low enough that he can grab the edge and scramble up. It’s there that he sees Sam again. The balcony door is clear fiberglass in a wooden frame, and though Dean can see that the pane's been covered with some sort of gauzy privacy curtain, there’s more than enough light inside to see what’s going on.

The dude’s standing there over Sam, holding that chain tight. His mouth moves, but Dean can’t quite make out any words. From the tone, and Sam’s current position still crouching on the floor, Dean hazards a guess that the dude’s laying down ground rules or something.

It’s a scene. Some sort of kinky sex scene, and Sam is wearing a fucking dog collar.

The dude pulls Sam’s jacket off his shoulders, then his flannel and the tee he’s wearing under it. Sam’s skin kind of gleams in the light, just a little, like he’s been sweating. Even through the curtains, Dean can see the faint crisscrossing lines of scars across his shoulders, and that one thicker scar running down his spine. Dean looks pretty much the same under his clothes, but not to the same extent. Sam’s never had an angel erase all of the marks left on his body.

The dude doesn’t seem to take any notice of the marks on Sam. Instead he kind of reels back and starts to strip himself. He’s hard, it doesn’t take Dean long to notice. After all, the dude is practically radiating it. He steps up to Sam, pulls the chain taut until Sam nearly topples forward, and then grabs at Sam’s face with his free hand. Sam’s so much bigger than this dude that it’s almost funny, but he’s pliant when the dude pushes Sam’s head down towards his eager cock.

Dean feels like he should turn away. He should leave and go back to their motel room and try not to think about all of this. But despite knowing what this _is_ , Dean doesn’t understand _why_. What the fuck is Sam doing here? Why is he letting this dude do this to him?

Why is he letting a _guy_ do it in the first place?

So he watches Sam’s head bob up and down, and feels like the skeeviest creeper known to man for doing so. But this is his brother, and even though Dad’s old order was last uttered years and years ago, Dean can’t help but want to watch out for him. Just to make sure this dude doesn’t do anything to him. And, if he has to be honest with himself, to make sure Sam doesn’t do anything to himself.

The dude pulls on the chain again, and Sam sits back on his haunches. Dean can see it when the guy’s cock comes free, red and shiny with spit. He says something, some kind of command, Dean thinks, and then he’s pressed in close to Sam. Sam raises up, just a little, and the dude tugs at his jeans until they’re down around Sam’s ankles. And Sam’s going commando too, or else the dude yanked down his briefs at the same time as his pants.

Sam doesn’t move to kick them off, and he’s still wearing his boots, even. It has to be uncomfortable, Dean thinks. But the dude says another command, and Sam turns away from him and comes down on all fours again. He’s facing towards the balcony door a little, now, and for a moment Dean thinks it’s all up, that Sam’s going to raise his head and see him and stop this craziness.

Sam’s got to be crazy, right? Or fucked up in the head, at least. Because from this angle, Dean can definitely tell that Sam isn’t hard. And why would he be doing all of this if it didn’t get him hard?

The dude shoves Sam forward with his foot, and Sam barely catches himself. He pulls the chain tight at the same time, pushes Sam forward while bringing his head up and back, exposing the smooth column of his neck. Dean watches Sam’s face for any sign of distress, any sign that he needs to break down the door and stop all of this.

But now Sam’s hard. Now Dean’s having an easier time believing this is a fucked-up sex thing and not some supernatural being screwing with them.

The dude grabs Sam’s hip with his free hand, shifts a little behind him, and then — well, Dean can see it written all over Sam’s face. But whether the sex is good or not, Dean can’t really say. He watches it for as long as he can stand, and then he finally manages to tear himself away. He can’t make himself actually leave, though. That’s too much. But he sort of hangs over the side of the balcony and tries not to hear the sounds coming from behind him.

It’s not just sex noises. Dean doesn’t think this dude is very creative, not by the standards he was taught, at least, but he does hear a variety of things. Something that sounds like a lash, a few open-hand strikes, enough variety that Dean thinks he isn’t sure what Sam wants.

He jumps down from the balcony when the noises stop, waits for Sam on the porch. It’s not that long of a wait. Just a few minutes, and Sam’s creeping out the front door, still adjusting his jacket and shirt as he goes. He stops dead when he sees Dean, though.

“Fuck me,” he says.

Dean jerks his head towards the bedroom upstairs. “I thought he did that already.”

***

“It’s not exactly a sex thing,” Sam says. Dean shakes his head. After not talking at all on the way back to the motel, _this_ is the first thing out of his mouth?

“Then what is it, exactly?” he asks.

Sam opens his mouth and then hesitates. “I don’t know, exactly. Dean, if I knew, I wouldn’t be doing this.”

“What, sneaking out in the middle of the night to get fucked while wearing a dog collar?”

Sam flushes. “No,” he mumbles. “Not that. I mean, fumbling around trying to figure this all out.”

It doesn’t make any sense at all. “So the collar and chain,” Dean ventures, “that was all his idea?”

Sam shrugs. “Yeah. Kind of liked the collar, but the pet play wasn’t really my thing. Look, I know you don’t like it, but this is something I kind of have to do for myself. I hope you understand.”

He doesn’t. Not at all. He has no clue why Sam would need to do this when Sam never seemed to need it before. “Sure, Sammy,” he lies. “I understand.”

The look of relief that flashes across Sam’s face is almost worth it.

***

Once the cat is out of the bag, Sam stops sneaking. On one hand it’s kind of nice, since Sam all but announces what he’s going to do and where he’s going to be. On the other hand, Dean still doesn’t exactly like all of this. Yeah, honesty is good and all that bullshit, but when Dean thinks about what Sam might being doing when he goes out? When he thinks about what those people have been doing to his brother?

And it bothers Dean that he doesn’t know when this all started. With Ruby? When Sam didn’t have a soul? Or is this what happens to a person when he spends over a century in Hell, gets shoved back into an unwilling body, and then spent the better part of six months with a wall in his head?

Dean shakes his head and tries not to think about it. Of course, about an hour after Sam’s left, Dean’s had enough to drink that going and finding the place du jour seems like a good idea. He’s not drunk, of course, Dean hasn’t felt truly drunk in what seems like forever. But he’s definitely intoxicated, and the liquor has him feeling warm and loose and stupid.

Sam has too much shit going on in his head, he reasons. It’s like Dean and the booze, only it’s weird kinky shit, and the weird kinky shit has the nasty side effect of involving other people. So he packs himself behind the wheel of their latest crappy car and sets out to find the most recent stop on Sam’s BDSM tour.

Unlike the last place, which was skeevy as hell, Dean finds himself in front of a small office building. It’s home to a nail salon and what Dean guesses is a head shrink, but the note Sam left leads Dean down to the basement. It’s a little cliche for a dungeon, but Dean really isn’t in the right frame of mind to think too hard about these things.

He has to see Sammy.

But this time there’s no balcony door with privacy curtains. There isn’t an easy way to just sneak up and watch, you know, just to reassure himself that Sam’s not being taken advantage of. So he has to jimmy the door handle a bit, quietly, and then takes out one of the cancelled credit cards from his wallet and pops the lock.

The inside of the office looks pretty bland and pleasant enough, as offices go. There are some plants and a desk with a computer and a phone on it. And behind the desk is a door made of some heavy wood stained dark. Dean’s pretty sure that all of the business goes down behind that door. It isn’t locked, which seems like a foolhardy thing to Dean, until he remembers that it’s basically the middle of the night.

He’s not sure what he expects when he cracks the door open. Chains and whips, maybe. Black leather and candle light. He’s not prepared to see Sam stripped naked and tied to a raised wooden platform, lying there spread eagle and bound at the wrists and ankles.

The person responsible this time is a woman. Dean thinks he has a lock on this one, though, as she’s completely Sam’s type. Dark and beautiful with long black hair? Check. This one isn’t as tall as Jess or what’s-her-name all those years ago, but she’s not as short as Ruby was.

And after another few moments, Dean’s positive he’s got this entire situation pegged.

“Open your mouth,” she says, tone playful, but with something else underneath. “Come on, Sam, it’ll fill you right up. Just a few drops, that’s all.”

Sam doesn’t say anything in response, but that’s all part of the game. The woman crosses in front of Dean’s line of vision, sidles up next to Sam, and her tone turns wheedling.

“I know you want it,” she says. “I know you crave it. Every minute of every day, it’s on your mind. It’s the first thing you want when you wake up, and it’s the last thing on your mind before you fall asleep at night.”

 _Demon blood._ A clean addict is still an addict.

“I can make you open your mouth,” she continues. “I have all sorts of fun little toys that are designed with the sole purpose of making a person scream. I can do that to you, Sam, you know I can. Because I think you want me to press my point, so to speak. You want it, but you don’t even have the balls to come out and take a little taste.”

Sam stays silent on the matter, but Dean really is starting to wonder just how much of this scene was negotiated earlier, and how much is sheer luck. She sounds like a demon. Hell, she sounds like Ruby.

“All right then, let’s see if I can loosen your tongue a bit.”

Dean sees a flash of something bright, something familiar. For a moment he wonders if Sam would be so stupid as to bring the demon-killing knife into all of this. But then she holds it up to the light and he can see that it’s just a regular knife. Flashy and not very functional, but good enough for what she does with it, he supposes.

She starts low. From his vantage point Dean can’t see exactly where, but it’s somewhere around Sam’s ankle. There’s that familiar meaty sound of a blade against skin, and for a moment Dean has to lean away from the door to catch his breath.

_Start slow, Dean. See if you can cut the cartilage from the joint without damaging the tendons._

Fuck, he isn’t blasted enough for this, and the bottle of whiskey is still in that shitty car. He has to focus, to think about the here and now. That woman isn’t carving Sam up in Hell. She’s doing a little knife-play. Because Sam asked her to.

The sounds are what brings Dean back to the door. Sam’s straining against the ropes, arched almost completely up off the wooden platform, cries muffled through his sealed lips, cock leaking a bead of precome. The woman doesn’t say anything, but from what Dean can see of her expression, she looks pleased. She reaches to the side with one hand, lays the knife aside, and pulls out a condom. She tears the foil open and rolls it down Sam’s cock, jerks him a few times when she’s done.

“I have you right where I want you,” she purrs. “I could cut myself and bleed across your mouth, force it on you. That’s what you want, Sam, and that’s what I’m not going to give you.” She climbs up onto the platform, up on top of Sam, and guides his cock in as she sits back. “I want you to ask for it, Sam. I want you to plead with me, to beg me for a taste.”

Sam keeps his mouth shut. Dean can hear him breathing, loud in the otherwise quiet room. Sam’s hands clench and release in the restraints, but they have no purchase on anything. She rides him, rocks against him, but there isn’t much in the way of a rhythm going. But Sam looks too frantic, too strung out for anything smooth and even. He bucks under her like a bronco, to the point where Dean isn’t exactly sure if Sam wants to fuck her brains out or get her off his cock.

“I see what you need,” she says, after what seems like forever. Her voice is steady, but it’s pitched higher than before. She picks up the knife and turns it over, presses the spine of the knife across Sam’s exposed neck.

With a strangled cry, it’s over. Sam pants through his mouth as she picks herself up and cleans him off. Dean can see little smears of blood on the towel she uses to wipe him down, but Sam looks good. He looks... tranquil.

And Dean’s so distracted by the lack of tension in Sam’s exhausted body that he doesn’t realize until it’s too late that the woman is standing right in front of him, expression unamused.

“Just so you know,” she tells him coolly, “I normally charge extra to put on a show.”

***

This time, Sam’s pissed.

“I can’t believe you followed me again,” he growls. They haven’t even left the office building yet; they’re still standing in the hall outside that woman’s front door. “You know, I kind of thought that you were cool with this. That once you knew that I wasn’t hiding anything, you’d back off and let me do this.”

Dean doesn’t have a response to that, not exactly, so he focuses on the one thing he can. “She had a knife to your throat, Sammy. What if something happened?”

Sam just shakes his head. “You’re unbelievable. She’s a professional, Dean. And I’m not exactly careless when it comes to this sort of thing. I vetted her, thoroughly.”

“What if she was a demon? What if she got possessed last night and you didn’t know?”

Sam huffs. “I’d know.”

And he sounds so fucking sure that Dean can’t help pushing further. “How?”

Sam gives him a look. “I was addicted to fucking demon blood, Dean. I know when it’s standing in front of me.”

The ground’s shifted under him, and now, somehow, Sam has the upper hand.

“I just don’t like you doing this alone,” Dean manages at last. “Winchesters get the shit end of shit luck, Sam. Something could go after you while you’re, uh, indisposed, and all I’d get is the body bag.”

“I’m not going to stop, Dean.”

Dean breathes out. “I’m not asking you to stop.” Not yet, he adds mentally. “I just want to keep an eye out, be your backup in case something happens.”

Sam’s shoulders relax and roll back, and his head drops, just a little. “All right, fine. I can let you do that.”

***

It’s only a week later that Sam comes to him with a name and an address, and it’s sooner than Dean likes. He’s not prepared for this, not yet. The last few times, this thing of Sam’s had been spaced pretty evenly apart, every two or so weeks. Dean doesn’t know what to make of this sudden urgency. “Already?” he asks.

Sam fidgets. “It’s been a long week.”

And it has. In the last three days alone, they’ve taken out a nest of vamps, three ghouls, and a revenant. In true fashion, Sam got strangled twice and thrown into three walls. He’s black and blue, Dean knows, and it doesn’t seem like a good idea to have someone work you over when you’re still recovering from an epic beatdown. Seems counterproductive and, yeah, just a little stupid.

But Sam gives him that look, the stubborn look that Dean’s seen a million times before, the one that usually heralds Dean’s capitulation or a massive fight between the two of them.

He gives in. There are other battles to fight, so Dean doesn’t waste his energy with this one. Sam’s made up his mind, and once he’s done that, there’s little Dean can do to make him change it.

“All right,” he says. “Let’s go.”

***

It’s another dude this time, but this one seems a whole hell of a lot less skeevy than the last one Dean saw. This one doesn’t even seem like the type to be a dom, all politeness and deferential to both Sam and Dean. Sam, for his part, doesn’t exactly explain why Dean’s there, just mentions that he’ll be watching. The dude looks back and forth between the two of them, and then comments, “You’re a cute couple.”

Dean doesn’t bother to correct him. That ship sailed ages ago, anyway. Instead, he turns to Sam and asks, “Where do you want me?”

Sam glances around the guy’s studio apartment. There’s already a table set up in the middle of the room, the other furniture moved aside and covered up with thick plastic sheets. Pragmatic and optimistic, Dean diagnoses. There are tall windows to the south, old paned glass that makes the outside look rippled and distorted, the front door to the north, and the galley kitchen with bar seating to the east.

Sam falls on the kitchen at the same time Dean does. “Take a seat,” he says, and nods to the stools.

Dean makes himself comfortable and turns to watch this guy work with Sam. He gets changed into this vinyl catsuit get-up and instructs Sam to strip out of his jacket and tee shirt. “I usually have something for my guests to slip into,” the guy says, with a shrug. “You’re a bit taller than I’m used to. I normally do just women, but there’s a recession and I need to pay the bills.”

Sam just shrugs. “Thanks for having me. And don’t worry about not having my size, I’m kind of used to it.”

Dean’s not sure why he didn’t pick up on it before, but he suddenly realizes that this dude isn’t going to be having sex with his brother. “Is a happy ending extra?” he asks, more out of wanting to make Sam uncomfortable than actual curiosity.

The guy gives him a withering look. “Look, man, I don’t know where the two of you have been before, but if there’s going to be any sexual contact, it’s between the two of you. I’m a strict professional.”

Dean shuts his mouth and decides to just watch.

“Sorry about that,” Sam says. “I disclosed not that long ago, and before then it was kind of what I could get when I could get it. He’s still a little weird.”

 _You’re weird_ , Dean wants to say, but he reminds himself that this isn’t about him. This is about Sam and whatever he gets from this.

But no sex? That means this isn’t a sex thing. Or not exclusively a sex thing.

It doesn’t make sense to Dean, but he guesses that’s not the point. It makes sense to Sam, and whatever it is that’s going on in that giant head of his. So he just sits back and watches the two of them go through some sort of opening discussion. Sam’s safe word is _Dean_ , which Dean thinks probably means something, but he doesn’t let himself dwell on it. He has to stay sharp on this, in case something happens.

Once they get started, the polite guy that invited them in turns into this gruff asshole. Like the skeevy dude before him, there’s a collar involved. He grabs at the collar and yanks Sam around by it, putting him through the paces. Dean knows that it’s all part of the play, but he didn’t seem like the kind of person to turn into this. Sam’s got that look on his face, though, the one he had with the dom lady.

Like he’s trying to scratch an itch that he just can’t reach, and this guy is helping.

So Dean breathes out and watches the guy go to work on his brother. He has padded leather cuffs, which look like they’re a bit of a tight fit, but Sam doesn’t really look like he minds. Dean mentally notes to keep an eye on his circulation, though, just in case. The guy cuffs him face down on the table, and then lights several short, wide candles in a loose circle around him.

The two of them have something arranged already, probably wrote an entire fucking novel on what they were going to do. The guy brings out a cart, and sets a selection of tools neatly across the side of the table. Dean recognizes more than a few of them. Whip, flog, and a selection of knives, ranging from a scalpel to something that looks like a butcher’s knife with a hook at the end.

The guy looks up and meets Dean’s eye. Dean tries to project an aura of _Damage him and I will end you_ , but the guy doesn’t seem phased in the slightest. Dean wonders how often he has someone sit in like this, if he’s used to getting glares from concerned, er, partners.

The guy starts with the candles, dribbles bits of hot wax onto the expanse of Sam’s back. Sam doesn’t even flinch, which Dean think startles the guy a little. He starts with the scalpel next, heats up the blade over the candle flame, but he doesn’t actually cut Sam. No, instead he presses the flat of the blade against one of the spots reddened by the wax, and is rewarded with a sharp hiss from Sam. The guy gets this look on his face, like maybe this is scratching _his_ itch as well.

But after that first sound, the guy has to work pretty hard to get Sam to make another noise. He goes across the range of blades he has, heats them until Dean thinks Sam’s going to blister, then pulls back. He picks up the flog and takes a few experimental lashes with it, but discards it almost as quickly as he picked it up. He takes up the snaky coils of the whip, but sets it aside like the other. His hands hover over the side of the table, clearly torn on what to try next.

Dean wonders if he would have this much trouble if Sam was naked and getting fucked. If sex really is a big part of it for Sam. Or if it’s knowing that Dean’s there that has the entire process stopped up.

The guy goes for a small rubber paddle, lays that on Sam’s shoulders with a resounding crack. The sound of it startles Dean, but more startling is the sound that’s ripped out of Sam. It’s something between a grunt and a whine, and the guy rocks back almost like he’s been struck. He swings again, but this time the strike isn’t as loud, and Sam’s reaction isn’t as strong.

The guy tosses the paddle down, climbs up on top of the table with Sam, nearly knocking the candles over in the process. He takes the time to make sure they’re all still upright and burning, and then he starts slapping the reddened skin there. Dean winces in sympathy, but Sam arches into it.

And that’s when Dean thinks he might get it. Sam needs the pain. It’s not exactly getting him off, but it’s doing something else for him, something that he can’t get any other way. Dean thinks about Sam’s hallucinations of Lucifer, when he had that full-on break from reality and couldn’t tell what was real. It was the pain that grounded him then. Maybe the pain is grounding him now, too.

But then the guy has to go and fuck it all up. Sam’s arching under him, his head bowed down so far he almost looks like he’s in prayer. And Dean watches it all, watches this guy reach up to the collar and, like that skeevy guy Sam had fucked weeks ago, yank it back. Hard.

Sam makes a sound, a familiar sound that Dean’s heard hundreds of times before, when some big ugly monster or demon or whatever has picked Sam up by the neck.

He’s choking, but he doesn’t try to fight or pull away or anything.

It only lasts for a moment, but that’s a moment too long. Dean’s up off his stool, across the room, knocking the guy off his brother. The guy sputters at him, “What the fuck?”

“I’m Dean,” he tells him. “And I say this is over.”

***

Sam’s pissed as hell, there’s no getting around that. The minute he gets off that table he tears into Dean. “You said, Dean. You fucking said you weren’t going to stop me. You were only coming along to keep an eye out, to make sure he stopped if I asked him to. You lied to me.”

“Shut the fuck up,” Dean snarls back. “He was fucking choking you, Sammy. You don’t play with that sort of shit, it’s too easy to go too far and wind up dead.”

“I’ve been careful. I know my limits.”

“Like hell you do! You’ve never known your limits, that’s why we went through all of this shit before, with Ruby and the blood and everything!”

Sam glowers. “Do _not_ make this about that. Yeah, I fucked up then, and when I fuck up, I do it big. But I thought that by now you would have learned to trust me a little. But no, you’ve just been waiting for me to fuck up all over again. That’s what this has been about this entire time, hasn’t it?”

“Shut up,” Dean tells him again. “This is over, and if you start that whole sneaking around on me shit again—”

“What?” Sam demands. “You’ll kick my ass? You’ll kick me to the curb? You think that will stop me?”

“I’m warning you, Sam,” Dean grits out. “No more, and that’s final.”

“Yes, _sir_ ,” Sam snaps out. And it’s like all of those fights, all of those years ago, when Sam was a teenager and the two of them were at each other’s throats all the time. Dean reels back, but he can’t deny the implied accusation.

Dean is turning into his father.

***

Weeks go by, and Dean assumes that all of this is over. Until one night, while he’s quietly drinking himself under, Sam pulls the bottle of whiskey out of his hand and sits down on the bed next to him. He takes a swig, like he’s steadying himself for something, and then sets it aside, out of Dean’s reach.

“We need to talk,” Sam says. “There’s no easy way around the subject, so I’m just going to grab the bull by the horns. Dean, I’ve been planning to sneak around behind your back and find another dom.”

Dean goes from sullen to pissed off in under a second. “We agreed—” he starts, but Sam cuts him off.

“No, Dean. We did not agree. You ordered, and I thought,” he hesitates, “I thought I could handle it. I wasn’t going to do anything, but then I kept thinking about it, and thinking of ways to go around behind your back and do it.” He takes a deep breath. “I’m not asking you to let me do this. I’m telling you that I am going to do it whether you like it or not. And I’d rather have you know than try to hide it. Every time we keep secrets from each other, they always come out at the worst possible time, Dean. And I don’t want this to be something that some psychic vampire pulls from my head and uses against us.”

“I don’t like it,” Dean returns.

Sam huffs out a sigh. “I know you don’t, Dean. But this is something that I have to do.”

“But why? Sammy, can you just tell me why? This isn’t strictly a sex thing, I kind of picked that up already.”

Sam reaches for the bottle of whiskey again, and the slosh of the liquor is loud in the quiet between them. Dean can hear Sam swallow, too, and for a moment he just listens to his brother breathe.

“We never really talked about Hell,” Sam says, his voice gone whisper-soft. “We just sort of brushed it all aside and said, we got work to do, all that shit that happened doesn’t matter anymore because it’s over.”

It’s not over, Dean knows that much. He knows about waking up in the middle of the night and not knowing where he is. He knows about flashes of Hell, of the blood and pain and the stench of rotting flesh. He knows what it’s like to be cut apart into pieces and then sewn back together with strips of his own gut. And he knows the relief of picking up the blade.

“Sammy,” he says.

Sam continues on, like he didn’t even hear. “It’s not entirely about pain. Sometimes I feel, I don’t know, kind of disconnected from my body. The pain helps me know what’s real and what isn’t.”

But that’s not all of it, he knows.

“I know about that part,” Dean says. “But go on.”

Sam shrugs. “I guess part of it is because I never had a say in anything. Dad gave us orders, and you enforced them. And even when I tried to go my own way,” his voice cracks, just a little, “all I was doing was walking right down the path that Yellow Eyes and Lucifer and the demons had cut for me. The more I fought, the more I was roped into a destiny that I didn’t want.”

There’s a sticking point in all of this, the part that Dean just can’t wrap his brain around. “But why let these people do all of this shit to you? I understand taking control back, I understand all of that, I do. But this?”

Sam looks up at him, then, meets his eyes for the first time in this conversation. “I am in control, Dean. I tried it the other way around, and it didn’t work for me. And I realized, it’s because it’s the sub’s choice to do it. It’s the sub’s final say in anything. If I don’t like something that’s happening, I can stop it at any time. It’s all on me.”

“But what if, Sammy, what if you’re with some asshole dude who won’t take no for an answer? Who doesn’t stop when you want him to? What then?”

Sam still doesn’t have an answer for that. 

But Dean does.

“I’ll do it,” he says.

That gets Sam off the bed and on his feet. “What? Dean, that’s crazy!”

Dean shakes his head. “No, what’s crazy is that you don’t know if these assholes will listen to you or not, and you trust them anyway. That last guy, the stuff with him wasn’t about sex. I can do that for you. I can be that for you, and you’ll know that if you want me to stop, I’ll stop.” He runs a hand through his hair, and then reaches for the bottle of whiskey. “If you’re going to do this, you might as well do it with someone who gives a shit, right?”

“Okay,” Sam says quietly. “Okay.”

***

Dean’s sober for the first time. Not completely, because his hands shake when he’s truly dry, but he’s only had enough to take the edge off, to steady his nerves. He needs it, Sam says, needs it soon, before the noise in his head takes over and he does something stupid.

Sam’s out getting coffee after a long night spent hip-deep in frigid black muck. When he comes back, Dean’s ready for him. Sam comes in, sets the coffee down, and then looks over at Dean. His forehead creases in something between confusion and concern. “What’s going on?” he asks.

Dean can see it on his face when he realizes. Dean has a chain in his hands, made of silver, sturdy links as wide as his thumb. He doesn’t know when exactly they picked it up, probably some holdover from Dad’s old armory. “Put this on,” he says.

Sam obeys. He takes the chain from Dean’s hand and wraps it around his neck. The chain doesn’t exactly fasten, but he bows his head and lets Dean tie it in a rough knot. When he’s finished, Sam straightens up, shoulders relaxed, one hand raised to his throat.

For an instant, Dean sees that man with his hands wrapped around the collar. “Don’t touch that.” The order is clear, and Sam’s hand drops away from it like the chain is on fire.

“Yes, sir,” Sam says.

And that’s just _wrong_. Dad was “sir”, not Dean. Dean will never be his father. “No,” Dean tells Sam, “when I give you an order, I want you to call me—” He flounders for a moment, trying to come up with something. Sam barely said anything during the sessions Dean witnessed, why does he have to start now? “Sir” doesn’t work, and neither does “Master.” That was Alastair, all those years in Hell. 

“Call me Big Brother.” He feels ridiculous saying it, but Sam nods sharply.

“Yes, Big Brother.”

“Good. And if you need to end this, what are you going to say?”

“I’m going to say ‘safe word’, Big Brother.”

“Good,” Dean says again, sounding inane to his own ears. He doesn’t know how a person can do this and not feel like a jackass, but maybe that’s a part of the act? “I want you to take off your socks and shoes. Left to right,” he adds, “shoes first, then socks. Then take off your shirts. You can keep the jeans on.”

Sam nods. “Yes, Big Brother.” He sits on the bed and gets to work.

By the time he’s stripped down, Dean’s ready for the next step. “Good work,” he says approvingly. “But you sat on that bed. I want you to strip it down to the mattress. Fold the sheets and blankets. If it’s not good enough, I’ll make you do it again.”

“Yes, Big Brother.”

Sam starts with the ratty bedspread, tugs it off the mattress and folds it precisely, then sets it over on one of the little motel chairs. Then he goes back for the blanket and follows suit. He does well, right up until he gets to the fitted sheet. It’s only then that it’s clear that he doesn’t know how to fold a fitted sheet. But that isn’t surprising at all. They’ve never really had their own sheets to wash as adults, and when they were younger Dean just tucked all of the corners together and it was good enough for Dad.

But that was before he spent that year living with Lisa.

Dean strides up to Sam, who’s starting that same old technique, and pulls the sheet from his hands. “Wrong,” he says, and tosses it on the bed. “Put it back on the bed.”

“Yes, Big Brother.” Sam slides the sheet back into place with a deft precision that would have gotten a smile out of Dad.

“On your knees, Sammy. Put your hands on the mattress,” Dean orders, “and keep your feet spaced evenly. I don’t want to see you move when I punish you. I want you up on those knees, brace your legs on the bed if you have to. Oh, and keep your back straight.” Dean ducks over to the side, rummages through his bag for his sharpest knife. It’s the bowie knife, the one with the carved elk horn handle.

Just a little cut, Dean thinks. Sammy liked it before, when the chick cut him. Sammy’ll like this, too. He cleans the blade with a splash of whiskey, and comes back to where Sam is waiting for him. He starts high, close to the shoulder blade, and pushes down just a little.

The first cut is shallow, but it bleeds freely, beads up and rolls down Sam’s back in a dark red streak.

_Take your time, Dean. There’s no rush. You have eternity to get this exactly right._

Dean has to catch his breath for a minute. Sam’s breathing hard, too, but there’s something expectant about it. Dean raises the knife again, and gently, so gently traces the line of Sam’s spine, down to the broad scar right above the small of his back. He can feel the tension in Sam as soon as the blade is off his skin again, and he thinks _just one more_.

The third cut, that’s the one where he gets creative. He makes the cut angled against Sam’s skin, across more than into him, twists it around into a curl at the end. Dean knows from experience that it hurts more this way. When he pulls the knife away, Sam’s back is trembling under his hand.

“There,” he hears himself say. “That should do for now.” He has to take a few more deep breaths before he can continue. “Stand up. Now that you’ve been punished, I think it’s time you learned how to fold a fitted sheet.”

“Y-yes, Big Brother.”

And it should make him feel sick to hear how wrecked Sam sounds over this. He should go and throw up everything he’s ever eaten, everything he could possibly eat in the future.

Instead, he feels satisfied.

***

They’re squatting in an abandoned warehouse, out of money, out of resources, just waiting out the latest storm. Some asshole in the last podunk town recognized them and called it in, and they spent the last several hours dodging cops as thick as flies on a corpse.

There’s a certain kind of peace to this place, an eerie calm to it that feels vaguely familiar. Dean doesn’t think too hard about it at first, but as the day wears on, and the sky darkens into night, it becomes more and more clear to him. There’s only a little light filtering in through the dirty windows, and what light makes it through is tinted the color of blood. The damp cement catches it in pools and turns it pitch black. The steel columns reflect it against the ruddy brick, fingers of light jutting upward like bones picked clean of flesh.

“Dean?”

Sam’s voice makes him jump, just a little, and he turns to face his brother. Sam’s dirty and tired, just like he is, but there’s a hunger in him.

Sam must see something in him, some reflection of that hunger, because he goes still.

“Big Brother?” he asks.

Dean isn’t aware of crossing the floor, doesn’t remember taking hold of Sam at all. But his hand is there, dark against Sam’s throat, holding him fast. The noise is thick in Dean’s head, static in his ears. 

He needs a drink.

He goes for his knife instead.

_It’s a part of you, the blade, the most basic intrinsically human thing you have._

He has the blade pressed up against skin, can smell the blood just under the surface, just waiting to be spilled.

Sam cries, “Safe word, Dean! _Safe word!_ ”

It all hits him in a rush. His mouth tastes like ash, like sulfur and smoke. His hand is wrapped around Sam’s neck, not choking him, but holding him still. There’s a drop of blood running down his brother’s neck. A stark line, ugly and black.

He lets go. He reels away from his brother, drops the knife somewhere between them, and walks out of the warehouse into the dusk.

_The only thing you have left is the power to destroy._

***

Sam finds him hours later on the roof, sitting on the ledge and pissy drunk, or as close to it as he gets anymore. “M’not going to talk,” he slurs.

“Good,” Sam returns. “Then maybe you’ll listen for once. I won’t pretend to know what exactly was going on back there, what’s been going on inside that thick skull of yours, but I can guess. And I want you to know something important, Dean. You stopped.”

Sam isn’t making a whole lot of sense, but Dean kind of rolls with it. “I stopped because you told me to,” he explains. “Not because I wanted to.”

“Exactly.”

“That doesn’t even make any sense, Sammy. _You_ don’t make any sense. None of this makes any sense.”

“I guess it doesn’t,” Sam agrees. “I guess that’s why we’re having such a hard time with it. I need this, Dean, I need it to shut up the part of my brain that won’t turn off otherwise. I need this to be something that I choose to do and not just something that happens to me.” He sits down next to Dean, lets his legs dangle in empty space. “You told me you wanted to do this for me so that I could be safe. Is that the only reason?”

Dean doesn’t have an answer for that.

Sam breathes in and out for a while, soft huffs of air. “You don’t have to do this for me, you know. But if you want it, if you want it like I do, then I just want you to remember that you stopped when I asked you to.”

They stay there, staring into nothing until the sky turns completely black.

***

Two months later, after a shit day on a shit hunt, they’re doing laundry. It’s not exactly the best place to bring it up, but it’s here that Dean really notices. Sam’s got his broody shoulder-hunch going on, but he’s not really talking about it. He spent six hours tied to a chair while a rogue Leviathan worked him over, but when he came out of it, the marks weren’t all on the outside of him.

Those are the marks that stay with you the longest. Dean knows that all too well.

After Sam finishes moving the load over to the drier, he takes a seat next to Dean, spreads his knees wide and leans forward to balance his elbows on them.

“Do you need it?” Dean asks.

Sam looks up and over at him, meets his eyes for the first time all day.

“Yeah,” he says quietly. “It was bad, today. Fucking creep didn’t help me any, either.”

“Okay,” Dean says. “When we get back. I got something for you.”

Sam’s voice is whisper-soft, but as rough as gravel. “Thank you.”

***

It’s in the bottom of his duffel bag, still wrapped up in brown paper. He pulls it out and hands it to Sam, then rubs his palms against his legs to dry them. Fuck, he shouldn’t be this nervous, but he is. On one hand, he knows what Sam likes. He’s done this enough times now to have a handle on what gets to Sam, what gets him hot under the collar. 

And what it is he needs.

“When did you get this?” Sam asks.

Dean just shrugs at him. “Picked it up a couple of weekends ago.” 

Sam peels off the brown paper eagerly, until they can both smell it. Leather. He freezes, then, looks up at Dean and asks, “Is this what I think it is?”

“Jesus, Sammy, just open it already.”

He peels off the final layer of paper and holds it in his hand. A collar, thick and heavy, black leather with a stainless steel buckle. It’s a collar that will last years.

“Put it on,” Dean says, but Sam shakes his head.

“No, Dean. I want you to put it on me.”

He drops to his knees, bows his head almost as if he’s praying, and holds the collar out in one hand. Dean wants a drink so bad he can almost taste the burn, but he can’t do that to Sammy. Not now. His brother needs him here, not hazed out on liquor. He takes the collar from Sam, comes up close and wraps it around his neck, fits the leather tongue into the buckle and pulls it snug.

Sam makes a sound, then, high and thin. And damned if that sound doesn’t make everything more fucked up than it already is.

Dean’s hard.

But this isn’t about him and all of that shit going on in his head. This is about Sam and what he needs.

He pulls on the collar, leads Sam around by it, pulls him up to the bed. He doesn’t know what he’s going to do, he doesn’t have a plan for it at all, but he pushes Sam down anyway. “Don’t move,” he tells Sam.

“Yes, Big Brother.” Sam stays in his place on the bed, right where Dean put him, looks up at him with trust in his eyes. Dean doesn’t know how Sam can look at him like that, doesn’t know how he can manage any of this when Dean feels like he's in a constant state of freefall. But none of that matters right now. Sam needs him, and Dean will always — _always_ — give him what he needs.

He releases his hold on the collar, takes a few steps back to center himself. Rope, he thinks, and turns toward his duffel. Sam's breaths are coming fast and ragged already. Dean rifles through their weapons bag, for a woven rope he knows they have stowed away. When he turns back, Sam is in exactly the same place, his expression raw and hungry. Dean’s back at the bed before he even realizes, stares down at his brother. Sam looks up at him through his eyelashes, meeting his gaze without moving an inch.

Dean pulls Sam's flannel shirt off of him, follows it up by pulling off his undershirt and exposing bare skin. He binds Sam's wrists tight enough to pinch, but not enough to do damage.

He turns back to the weapons bag, pulls out a curved silvery blade. One of Sam's, one they haven’t used in a long time. Not one of their working knives, more for show, for ritual. Perfect for this kind of work.

Dean traces the lines up Sam's arms, traces the path of vein and muscle and sinew. He’s aware of the power in those arms, knows that Sam could stop him at any time. For Sam, the power comes from letting go.

Dean still doesn’t know what this is to him.

He pushes Sam against the bed, rolls him so he’s face down, his arms still bound and tucked under him. He back is wide and smooth, golden skin marred by the bruises left by that leviathan. Dean starts with them, traces circles around the mottled marks with the tip of the knife. Not drawing blood, not even breaking the skin, just leaving thin white lines around each one. They hurt enough already, Dean knows, but adding the right kind of pain to it changes everything.

In minutes, Sam is arching under his touch, his back bowed up towards the ceiling, his head dropped low. There’s tension in him again, but it’s the good kind. A bowstring pulled taut, the hammer drawn back on a pistol, the last glorious instant before orgasm.

The bruises run all the way down Sam’s back, down under his belt and the seam of his jeans, so Dean pulls Sam onto his knees, pulls his hips up off the bed so he can reach around and undo the belt and button and zipper, and pull his jeans down to expose the rest of the bruises.

It’s not until he has his hands in place that he thinks about what he’s doing. He’s bent over his brother’s ass, Sam’s face down on the bed and making hoarse sounds, and both of them are hard.

“Big Brother,” Sam pants. “ _Please._ ”

His cock wants it. _He_ wants it. He wants to curve against Sam like the blade of the knife, to trace wet lines into his skin, to sheathe himself deep and sure.

But this has never been about what he wants.

He pulls back, gets up off the bed and makes himself stand clear across the room. “Ask for it,” Dean orders. “Beg me for it.”

_Let them wait, Dean. The anticipation is almost as sweet as the pain._

Sam makes a sound of frustration. “ _Please_ ,” he repeats, and he sounds infinitely more wrecked this time. “Big Brother, I need it.”

It’s over then. Whatever protests Dean may have had, however wrong and fucked up it all is, he can’t deny Sam this.

He reaches into his bag for supplies, gets himself ready, and when he gets back on the bed Sam is practically vibrating with tension. He hisses when Dean lays his hands across his back, and though Sam is holding stock still Dean can feel how much he wants to lean into the touch. Dean tugs down Sam’s jeans the rest of the way, but leaves them tangled around his knees. He pulls off layer after layer of his own clothing until he’s down to bare skin, and slots one knee between Sam’s legs to open them as much as he can, lines up his cock, but hesitates.

“You can end this at any time,” Dean tells him. “No matter what, I will stop for you.”

“I know,” Sam returns, high and thready.

It’s a short stab forward with his hips, and Sam cries out like he’s been cut. 

The relief is both sharp and sweet.

***

It’s been years since Dean’s woken up next to a warm body. It feels good to be curled together, legs tangled, naked skin against naked skin. It’s only when he opens his eyes that he sees Sam staring at him, and the previous night comes rushing back in a hurry.

“Hey,” Sam says, and reaches over to cup Dean’s cheek. His hand covers half of Dean’s face. “About last night. Thank you.” Sam takes a deep breath. “I know that this has been hard on you. I know that this all has to be bringing up memories that you don’t want to talk about. And I want you to know that this, this thing we have going right now, it’s so much more than I ever could have hoped for. And if there’s anything I can do to repay you for this, whatever it is, I’ll do it.”

Dean stares into Sam’s warm, soft eyes. And then he leans in to suck Sam’s lower lip into his mouth. He tastes like morning, a little sour, but not exactly bad. Sam opens his mouth and slides his tongue in, just a bit, like he’s feeling it all out, and that’s all Dean needs for encouragement. He pulls on Sam, pulls him on top of him, but keeps his mouth fastened on Sam’s.

Sam’s hardening against Dean’s thigh, growing hot and heavy. He mumbles around kisses, “Let me, Dean, let me take care of you.”

They don’t talk after that. Sam fits himself between Dean’s thighs, reaches between them to line up their cocks. His hand is rough and calloused, but it feels good, better than his own, better than Lisa’s. He was good at this, once upon a time. Women, men, whoever happened to catch his eye. Like so many other things, Alastair took this from him as well.

Sam jerks them off together, but he takes his time with it. Does it dry for a while, then lets go to spit in his palm and slick them both up. By then, Dean’s rocking under him in time to the rough strokes, gasping and groaning and grunting into Sam’s skin, the same skin he’d broken and bruised the night before.

Sam’s neck smells like leather and sex and sweat all rolled up together.

Dean reaches around, grabs Sam’s ass tight in his hands, and pulls Sam closer. Sam gets his hand out of the way, until it’s just their cocks rubbing together, heat and friction and just a little wetness.

“God, Sam,” Dean groans, and Sam answers with a low groan of his own and a burst of speed. That’s it for Dean, right there. He spills over in messy streaks, clenches his hands into the meat of Sam’s ass, rides the aftershocks as Sam slows down and pulls back.

Sam sits up, cock still full, stomach smeared with Dean’s come, and jerks off. He takes it slower than Dean expects, but he keeps his eyes fixed on Dean. Dean watches him come apart again, and it’s so different than before, while being so similar at the same time. Sam’s eyes are dark and flinty, right up until he squeezes them shut. He bites his lower lip until it turns white against his teeth.

And afterwards, once his breathing has evened out again, Sam leans in to kiss him, just the barest touch of lips.

He pulls away again and meets Dean’s eyes. “I know I’m fucked up,” he says, his words quietly intense. “I know you’re fucked up, and this is all fucked up. But maybe,” he says, “maybe we can be fucked up together?”

Dean pulls Sam down on top of him, wraps him up tight in his arms and breathes him in.

“Okay,” Dean says. “Okay.”


End file.
